Stars in the Night
by lionesseyes13
Summary: Five Midwinters and five friends Onua is grateful to have. Starring Onua. Co-Starring Tahoi, Buri, Sarge, Miri, and Evin.


Author's Note: This was written for the Second Day of Midwinter Challenge over at the Tamora Pierce Writing Experiment Forum.

Disclaimer: I am not Tamora Pierce, and you can consider that sensational news a special Christmas gift from me.

Stars in the Night

_Tahoi_

Onua hummed a traditional K'miri Midwinter song as she added more cumin to the partridge she was cooking over the fireplace. That was the idealized version of where she was and what she was doing, which she was trying hard to make herself believe, at any rate, so that she would not be too depressed during this beautifully cold Midwinter season.

The brutal reality was that she was only cooking the lowest quality cuts of a partridge a Lowlander merchant, in an act of charity that still made her feel like vomiting and that would make the poultry stick like plaster to the roof of her mouth when she finally ate it at supper tonight, had given her.

She also wasn't singing the K'miri carol as it was supposed to be sung. All K'miri songs were made to be chanted and performed as a clan beside a campfire. They weren't intended to be hummed under the breath of one woman as she cooked supper for her drunkard of a husband in a Lowlander city. But how could she properly sing the ancient songs of her people by herself? And how could she live anywhere besides a Lowlander city when the Lowlanders had made it impossible for the K'miri clans to gather together and ensured that the only way to eat was to work in a Lowlander settlement?

If they had lived a generation ago, her husband Sluken, would have been a proud warrior fighting the Lowlanders and protecting his flocks from Lowlander raids and non-human predators. Now, he was nothing more than a day laborer who drank up most of the money he earned in the most disreputable taverns before she had a chance to buy food or anything else the pair of them needed to survive. K'miri men were meant to live off the land, she thought. When they were taken from their natural environment, they couldn't thrive. That was her excuse for the fact that she never saw Sluken sober any more.

He hadn't always devoted his life to ale, though. Once, he had dedicated his life to her. Years that felt like a century ago, he had knelt before her in a mound of snow on a chilly winter night like this and begged her to marry him. He had promised to love her forever and sworn that he would never hurt her. Her heart had sung like a caged dove finally freed from its prison, and the wind slamming into her face had seemed to warm rather than chill her. His cheeks as red as holly berries, he had apologized for the fact that he could only offer her an iron ring, but she had thought the ring had sparkled like the silver stars glittering over their heads. She had said yes, and her voice had echoed with all the wild delight of sleigh bells as a child skidded down a hill on a sled.

Oh, they had been so happy, and she had promised to love him—to stay with him—until death parted them. She couldn't break her word, even though he wasn't the funny, kind man she had married, not when there was the chance that they might regain some of the joy they had once shared together. Not when there was even the faintest possibility that the man she had loved would recover from the drunken stupor that had swallowed him for years and return to her. She had to be the faithful, fixed star in his sky, so he could navigate a path back to her by her loyal light.

Her mind had wondered far from her cooking. The nauseating stench of burned bird and spices filled the hovel. Tahoi barked and buried his snout in his paws.

"You won't be getting any table scraps tonight, no matter how much you beg, then," Onua informed him tartly, wrinkling her nose at the dog. Banging a spoon on the pot as she tried to figure out how to salvage the overcooked poultry, she added, "I'd like to see you do a better job cooking, mutt."

"That wouldn't be too—too impressive." A belligerent stutter and a smell of alcohol strong enough to intoxicate a small child announced that her husband was home from his revelries in his favorite tavern. Being drunk, in his mind, was clearly, an acceptable Midwinter gift for his wife. Maybe, Onua thought darkly, if she was exceptionally lucky, he would let her clean up his vomit when he was sick on the floor for the third time in six days. "Anyone could cook better'n you, woman. You wouldn't know how to cook if a pan whopped you upside the head. It smells like old shit in here."

"The old shit smell comes from you," Onua snapped. She knew, from talking to the wives of other drunkard husbands, that it was unwise to sass a man while he was drunk, but she couldn't help it. Every time she saw him in this revolting state, she had to point out how disgusting what he was doing to himself was. She loved him and that was the only way she could restore him to the man he had been—the man he should have been—before he was knifed in the heart in some stupid tavern brawl or frozen to death walking home when his friends were too drunk to think of helping him hobble back to the hovel he shared with Onua. She couldn't afford to turn a blind eye to the faults that might kill him. "It didn't smell bad in here until you came in."

"You whore." Sluken backhanded her viciously enough to send her crashing against the mantelpiece. The back of her head throbbed in a way that told her she would have a lump there for a week. Red and green candles, burning with her pain and humiliation, flared inside her mind, but she didn't shed a tear. She wouldn't cry for him, for herself, or for the crimes he committed against both of them.

"You think you gotta smart mouth, don't you, chit?" he spat, punching her mouth. She heard her jaw crack, but felt, from experience, that it wasn't broken. The same couldn't be said for her lips. The skin on her lips had shattered under the force of his blow. The metallic taste of blood was tainting her tongue, and a trickle of warm, crimson liquid was trickling down her chin like hot jam from a raspberry tart. "Well, I think it's smarter when it's shut."

"And don't look at me like I'm going to make you sick." Sluken's fists smashed into the flesh beneath her eyes, and she knew purple and black thunderheads would hover there for days because of him. "That ain't nice. I'm your husband. You oughta look at me with love and respect."

His hand swung out to grasp her wrist, and Onua knew that he was about to turn her around and beat her back and buttocks black and blue with a stick from the kindling pile. Tahoi, who had been whimpering in the corner, must have understood what was about to happen, and, unlike her, he must have finally had enough of the shouting and the hitting.

With a growl, he charged across the room. He sunk his teeth into the back of Sluken's breeches. Ignoring the man's yowling protests, he pulled Sluken away from Onua.

"You mangy cur," snarled Sluken, kicking Tahoi savagely in the chest. "Stop protecting your bitch."

The sight of her husband attacking Tahoi drove Onua into action. She could put up with scars and bruises of her own if there was any chance that the Sluken she loved would come back to her. She couldn't watch Tahoi suffer, though. She could defend him in a manner she refused to protect herself.

Before her mind could process what her body was doing, her fingers closed around an iron pan. She lifted it in the air, and, through her battered eyelids, she saw the pan sparkle like a gigantic ornament as it smacked into her husband's head.

Sluken crumpled to the ground, and Tahoi, barring his teeth, regarded the fallen man warily.

"I loved you, Sluken, but you're dead to me now." Onua could see that he was still breathing but that didn't make him any less dead to her. Shakily, she ordered, "Come, Tahoi."

She had to leave, she thought, stumbling to the door and wrenching it open, so that frigid gusts of wind tore through her clothing, chilling her to the bone marrow before she had even set foot outside. She had to escape the hovel she was trapped in with her husband before she was reduced to the kind of woman who was always cracking her man upside the head with a pan after he turned her face to mincemeat. She wouldn't bring anything with her, either, because she didn't want any objects with her that might remind her of Sluken.

With Tahoi at her heels, she hobbled blindly down the streets covered in snow the color of the shit Sluken had accused her burned partridge of smelling like.

It was only when she found herself slipping on icy cobblestone that she realized she was in a wealthier district of the city. The manors surrounding her would have to have stables with warm bales of hay she could sleep and hide in for the night. That took care of where she would sleep tonight, and that was all that mattered. Tomorrow she would worry about tomorrow's survival.

She stumbled into the garden of one of the grand houses with candles winking mockingly in its windows and tinsel twinkling teasingly over its doorways. The yard, like the streets, was deserted, and, dimly, she wondered if everyone but her and Tahoi were feasting and exchanging presents with family and friends.

What had she done to deserve to be out here freezing alone in the dark, while everybody else clustered around the warmth and light of a blazing fire? Teeth chattering with rage over this unanswerable question, she tripped over a snowman.

Bitterly envisioning the giggling children who must have worked for hours to build a man doomed, like all men, to melt in heat, Onua sagged against a tree. She didn't have the energy to brush the wet snowflakes off her, and so gazed miserably up at the tree dripping with icicles that glimmered with all the fake promise of diamonds.

The branches were barren, and, because of the white snow clinging to them, appeared oddly skeletal, but she could still see that it was a pear tree. A pear tree was a stupid thing to plant here. It was much too cold most of the year for pears to grow. Pear trees were as out of place here as the K'mir. The pear tree was just another K'mir that would never bear sweet fruit because it was rooted in the wrong soil and climate.

Through the pear tree's limbs, she could see the stars gleaming at her like the cold, piercing tips of daggers. The stars didn't care about her or anyone else in the world. They would just stare coldly down at her pain, and they would be the only ones who ever noticed her suffering, because all other people were busy celebrating a blessing she would never be granted.

Sensing her distress, Tahoi lay down beside her and wrapped his furry fame around her shaking body. The icicles, as hard and as cold as diamond, around her heart melted, flooding the blood that pounded through her with heat. She was not alone, after all. She had Tahoi. She wasn't cold, because she had the warmth of a devoted pet—no, friend.

Curling into Tahoi's fur, she told herself that sleeping with Tahoi was better than sleeping with her husband had ever been. Tahoi was warmer, softer, and probably had better breath in the morning. Why would she ever need a man when she had a dog?

_Buri_

"You look beautiful, my dear. I think it is time we partied like two turtledoves." Merchant Jeffers whipped the sprig of mistletoe he carried everywhere during the holiday season in the hope of accosting as many maidservants as possible from his pocket, while he stepped into the stall where Onua was brushing his stallion. Holding it over both their heads, he called out jovially, "You owe me a good kiss on the lips now."

After almost a year of serving as a hostler in Merchant Jeffers' stables in Corus, Onua knew that Merchant Jeffers would stick his penis inside any orifice of any female who remained stationary long enough. Last year, when she had awoken to find herself in the garden of the Lowlander merchant who had offered her the partial partridge charity and discovered that a Tortallan merchant attending a party in the mansion was willing to hire her as a hostler, she had regarded it as a miracle. Even when she vomited up the stale bread and musty water she consumed on the voyage to Tortall, she had seen her appointment as a hostler for Merchant Jeffers as a Midwinter gift from the Horse Lords for which she had only to pay a small price. Only when she arrived in Corus did she think that she had unwittingly jumped from the kettle into the fire and that the gods had set the stage for the next comical act in the eternal joke that was her life. It was only in Corus that she discovered that Merchant Jeffers had a roving hand and a wandering eye. He had a wife and children, but that didn't stop him from bedding all of his maids.

So far, she had managed to slip away from him when he propositioned her. Hoping her luck would continue today, she said, "On the cheek, perhaps, sir."

"False modesty is appealing in a woman." Merchant Jeffers bent his head toward hers under the mistletoe, and she could smell the spiced wine clinging to his breath, making her stomach squirm. Alcohol made men stink worse than swine and turned them into boors if they weren't already pigs. Planting his lips firmly upon hers, so that she had to taste the alcohol on his mouth, he added, "I like to pretend that I'm the only one who has had my sluts."

"I'm not a slut," Onua choked out, as his tongue pushed roughly through her lips and rammed against the sides of her mouth. "Go to the taverns if you want a whore."

"Quiet." Jeffers removed his tongue from her mouth to snap out the word. Shoving her against the wall of the stall, he reached out to squeeze her breasts, drawling, "I left you alone for a year so you could recover from whatever your husband did to unhinge you. Now I expect you to repay me for rescuing you."

"Consider this your repayment, bastard." Seething, Onua slapped his hands away from her chest and kicked him between his legs.

He doubled over, cursing. Taking advantage of his lowered guard, she brushed past him. As she fled from the stall, he heard her scream after her, "Run far away from here, woman. I'll never employ you again before Carthak freezes over."

Numbly, Onua climbed up to her room in the stable lofts, where she collected Tohai, her clothing, and her other belongings. As she walked away from the only place she really knew in Tortall with Tahoi, as steadfast as ever, at her heels, Onua reflected that she was out on the streets for the second Midwinter in a row.

Heading up a boulevard crowded with women buying food for parties, she thought that, at least, the avenues in Corus weren't deserted. She could pretend to be a maid purchasing more eggs and milk rather than a now unemployed woman, but she couldn't remain unemployed forever. She would have to do something to earn her bread. Many women cast out onto the streets like she had been became prostitutes, but she couldn't sink that low. She was a K'mir, she was proud, and she wouldn't let Jeffers or anyone else turn her into a whore.

A carol from the next avenue reached her ears. Listening to the song because it filled her with hope like a mug of steaming cider and took her mind away from the worry of how she would eat in Corus without whoring, Onua recognized that it was a carol she had never heard among the K'miri about following a star to a place of perfect, royal beauty and light.

Why not follow the stars? she asked herself, as she hurried along the boulevard, projecting an aura of assurance, since she was well aware that acting unsure was the swiftest way to get raped or robbed in any city. Some believed that the stars dictated all their destinies, and she had nowhere better to go but where they lead.

Following the path that the most brilliant star overhead seemed to be blazing for her, Onua moved through the crowds passing through the center of the city and then moving beyond the outskirts of Corus. Seeing that the brightest star in the sky appeared to be hovering over the royal palace, she joined the masses streaming in through the castle gates to watch the king and queen dine in state.

The palace, she decided as she waited to pass through the golden gates, was the perfect place for her to go. Hundreds of women had to work here as cooks, laundresses, and maidservants. If she could find a job anywhere in Tortall, it would be here.

As she finally went through the gates, her eyes fell upon the distant building of the barracks for the Queen's Riders. The Riders, from what she had heard working for Jeffers, rode ponies, which meant people must be employed to care for the ponies. The Riders also, based on what she had heard, allowed females to join their ranks, so surely they would be willing to hire her as a hostler.

A faint star of hope igniting in her chest, Onua set off across the brick pathways surrounded on either side by snow banks that led toward the Riders' barracks, Tahoi beside her, his paws hitting the thin layer of ice covering the red bricks. When she reached the barracks, she knocked on the door.

Swallowing hard, she waited for someone to come to the door, but nobody did. A guard should have been monitoring the door, since this was a military facility, but, apparently, the sentinel in question was partying hearty. Through the oak door, she could hear the sounds of boisterous holiday singing and laughter. She couldn't remember the last time that she had sung or laughed. She belonged among these laughing, singing people about as much as an iceberg did in a desert, but she desperately wanted to be a part of their laughter and learn the words to their strange songs. It was that desperate desire to belong that kept her outside the door and compelled her to knock more loudly on the door separating her from the laughter and the music.

This time someone—perhaps even the person who should have been on guard duty—heard her knock, and the door swung open, revealing a young woman who appeared about fifteen. Shimmering green ribbons were woven into the girl's copper hair, and scarlet poinsettias that had to be evidence of dancing flared in her cheeks, so that she looked like the walking spirit of Midwinter.

"May I help you, ma'am?" The girl offered Onua a grin that said more clearly than words that she would rather be partying in the warmth with her friends than in the cold helping some lost woman.

"I need a job." Onua hated how pathetic she sounded, because she had wanted to sound tough and worthy of serving warriors. "Please. I'm very good with horses and ponies."

The girl's emerald eyes pierced into her, and Onua, her entire body flaming with humiliation, knew exactly how the girl must see her. Wind-tossed and snow-soaked hair. Dressed in clothes too thin for the winter. Mad, lost eyes. Shaggy dog by her side. All of it was pitiable and frightening, but not remotely promising.

"I'm not the one who does the hiring." Obviously torn between sympathy and revulsion, the girl pressed her cherry lips together. "I'll get Buri. She's the one who does the hiring and the firing."

Turning back toward the warmth and the light, the girl tossed over her shoulder, "You can come inside if you'd like and have a cup of hot chocolate while I get Buri, but the dog will have to stay outside."

Yes, Tahoi would have to stay outside. If he was let inside, he would barrel over to the tables jammed with cider, hot chocolate, wine, sweetmeats, fruit, cheese, and roast beef. He would beg for food or grab some of his own without permission. Onua's chances of being hired would plummet from slim to less than a snowball's odds of surviving in the sun.

Yet, Tahoi had never abandoned her—not even when her husband had beaten her and she had been cast out onto the streets—and so she could not leave him alone in the cold during Midwinter. She would remain outside with him, staring through the now open door at the whirling groups of dancers laughing as they screamed out the lyrics to holiday carols she had never heard before.

She couldn't sing or dance in a strange land where she was familiar with none of the music, anyway, she told herself, running her fingers through Tahoi's fur and trying to soothe her nerves. After all, she didn't want to seem like a complete mess when she met the woman in change of hiring her.

All too soon, she saw the red-haired girl weaving through the dancers with a burly, swarthy-skinned woman beside her.

"Jadelyn says you wanted to speak with me," the stocky woman announced crisply, as the girl whose name was presumably Jadelyn faded back into the celebrations. "I'm Buriram Tourakom, second in command of the Riders and responsible for all the day-to-day decisions. My friends call me Buri. You can call me Commander Buriram."

"I'm Onua Chamtong." Onua wished that everything from the strands of her hair to her toes wasn't trembling.

"Onua Chamtong," repeated Buri, her dark eyes flashing over Onua's entire figure. "That could be a K'mir name."

"It is." Onua lifted her chin and tried to look like more of a credit to her ancestry. "I'm K'mir."

"Hmm." Buri cocked her head to the left, eyes narrowing as she continued to scrutinize Onua. "There aren't many K'mir in Tortall."

"That's not surprising." Onua laced her fingers together in the vague hope that the gesture would make their quaking less noticeable. "Getting here was a long and lonely journey for me."

"And now you want a position here." From her tone, it was impossible to discern what Buri thought of this prospect.

"I swear by the Horse Lords that I'm good with horses and ponies." Onua tried to set her quivering jaw. "I could do the work in your stables well, Commander Buriram. I'm asking for an opportunity to work hard, not for charity."

"Everyone who applies for a job here claims they are good with horses, and half of them can barely tell a pony's mane from its tail," grunted Bui.

"I've worked for Merchant Jeffers as a hostler for a year," Onua burst out. "I only left because Jeffers started mistaking me for a whore."

"I am getting tired of buying the ponies for the trainees and bringing them down from Galla every year." Although Buri's voice was as caustic as ever, her eyes had softened. "If you worked for me over the winter and proved you do know a thing or two about ponies, I would appoint you as horsemistress and give that task of collecting the ponies to you in addition to some other duties. For now, you'll receive the same wage as a trainee. You'll have your own room on the women's side of the barracks, you'll eat in our mess hall, and our tailor, Kuri, will provide you with clothing appropriate for work in the stables. You won't freeze or starve as long as you work hard."

"Thank you." Biting her lip to hold back a primal cry, Onua didn't know if she had experienced a miracle bestowed by the Horse Lords, a mercy granted by an ornery human, or both. "I'll work hard. You'll never have reason to regret your charity toward me."

"This isn't charity—it's a chance for you to work hard." Buri shook her head dismissively. "I'm running a military organization, not a charity."

Before Onua could reply, Buri went on, "I'll go find Kuri. She'll show you to your room, since she is better with all this meet-and-greet nonsense than I am. Before I get her, though, I want to tell you something." Buri's gaze lanced into Onua. "I'm not asking for the dirty details of what Merchant Jeffers did to you, because, in the Riders, we have a strict policy of not poking into the raw wounds of one another's painful pasts. I will say that most of the Riders are very sensitized to sexual harassment. The handful who are not will quickly be sensitized by me or Sarge, who terrorizes the trainees into shape, if they sexually harass anyone. As long as you are here, you don't need to worry about being assaulted or harassed by any man."

_Sarge_

"Hello, darling." Shooting Onua the gleaming smile she was quite acquainted with after a year with the Riders, Sarge nodded at a seat across from her. "Anyone sitting there?"

"The whole table is empty," answered Onua. It was during another one of the Riders' Midwinter parties. All around her, soldiers were singing and dancing to Tortallan carols she still wasn't familiar with, and, although she was aware that all the Riders would welcome her into their whirling, chuckling circles, she knew that she would butcher the lyrics and fumble all the steps in the dances.

Still, she was fortunate not to be on the streets alone in the cold this Midwinter, and she would not permit herself to become a person who was always grumbling things like, _"Well, this Midwinter is fine, but I remember how dreadful last Midwinter was when I almost froze on the streets." _Nobody wanted to be around somebody who was forever moaning about prior suffering instead of celebrating present joy.

Keeping this principle firmly in mind, she continued playfully, "There is plenty of room, even for all of your bulk."

"Good." Sarge sat down, a mug of steaming hot chocolate and a long stick of peppermint in his hands. "I'm not planning to fast this holiday season."

"You could dance off some of the fat, at least," Onua teased, jerking her chin at the twirling masses, as she nibbled on a cookie shaped like a warm, fresh-baked snowman.

"That's not for me." Sarge laughed, and the noise was every bit as powerful as his shout, which could turn any trainee's blood to ice. "All these Tortallan dances are too different from the Carthaki ones I'm accustomed to."

"You had different dances in Carthak?" asked Onua, rather embarrassed that this had never occurred to her.

"Right in one, wise woman." Sarge nodded, sipping sagely from his mug of hot chocolate. "Carthaki dances weren't just different from Tortallan ones; they were different from each other. Northern Carthaki had different dances than Southern Carthaki ones. Carthaki slaves had different dances than their masters."

"Lowlanders and Highlanders in Sarain had different dances," Onua remarked, wrapping her palms around her cup of mulled cider and savoring the heat it emitted. "I do miss singing and dancing with my whole clan."

"I forgot that you've only been here a year." Sarge shook his head. "The pain of leaving your people behind lessens as you find a new people and a home you can make for yourself with other refugees."

"It's not that." Onua didn't bother to point out that she had actually spent two years in Tortall. "I stopped singing and dancing with my clan long before I left Sarain. My people have been forced to scatter and settle in Lowland cities and towns. We can't sing and dance our ancient songs in strange places where we don't really belong. It's not that I'm separated from my people. It's that my people are dying."

There. She had managed to be depressing even though she had tried to be uplifting at the start of the exchange. Anxious to lighten the tone of the conversation, she cast around for a change of subject. Seeing that Sarge was dipping his peppermint into his hot chocolate, she inquired in a cheery voice, "Is sticking peppermint in hot cocoa another Carthaki custom?"

"Yes." Sarge grinned as he bit into the chocolate-soaked peppermint. "The Carthaki always had a flair for combining flavors in a way that could make anyone's palate explode with delight. Peppermints dipped in hot chocolate was one of their simplest Midwinter pleasures."

"Not everything was terrible in Carthak, was it, then?" The question flew from Onua's lips before she could halt it.

"I was a slave, but even I didn't find life in Carthak unbearable." Sarge continued to munch on his peppermint stick. "I just found it heavily dependent upon my master's personality. My first master decided that I would be a personal slave in his daughter's quarters rather than a field slave as a reward to my mother, whom he slept with whenever he desired her. Once his daughter and I developed an attraction for one another in our early teens, she was married off to some old, abusive noble, while I was beaten until I passed out from pain and blood loss. Then, I was sold to a military officer who looked for reasons to beat me and the men he commanded. Finally, he died of a heart failure healers suspected was caused by poisoning. After it was determined that I had nothing to do with the poisoning, I was sold to another military commander. He never beat me. He treated me like a man, not a slave. He taught me how to fight and how to command. He taught me how to read words and maps as well as how to draw terrain and write letters. He bought me a thoroughbred stallion, and, when he wasn't on duty, we would go hunting with his friends. When he was on his deathbed, about to pass on his estate to a feckless young stepson from his second marriage, he told me to flee. He didn't want me to have a foolish, wasteful man for a master. He wanted me to be free after my years of loyal service, but the law didn't allow him to emancipate me, so he sent me away, bearing letters that I was dispatched to bring back a respected healer from Corus, and sent me to Tortall on a ship he booked passage for me upon."

Sarge's mouth twisted. "I was more of a slave to that man who always treated me like I was free than I was to either of my brutal masters. My happiness was dependent upon his good will and his decision to treat me kindly. I was chained to him, because, as long as he lived, I would not have chosen to fight by anybody else's side. Even if I had freedom, I would have wanted to serve him, and, if that isn't slavery, what is?"

"Slavery is loving someone even though the person they were—the person you fell in love with—is dead." Onua gulped down her cider, trying to swallow the frog in her throat. "Slavery is staying with somebody you hate out of memory for the person you love whom they used to be. Slavery is keeping your promise to a person who breaks his oaths. Slavery is knowing that your husband can come home drunk and thrash you every night. Slavery is knowing that what keeps you under his thumb is the rule of thumb."

"I knew you had a cruel past." Sarge clucked his tongue empathetically. "I could see you had scars from the moment I laid eyes on you, but now I know it was your husband who gave them to you because he couldn't appreciate the wife he had in you. Just understand that you are strong because you have scars and a soul. People with scars and no soul are just plain wicked. People with no scars and a soul are obnoxiously naïve and self-righteous. People with no soul and no scars are fit only to be burned at the stake. People with scars and souls can make the darkness bright and change the world. You and me, we have our souls and our scars, and we are blessed to have both."

"I'm blessed to have found this place, so I could be loved by friends like you." Onua forced her soul to smile even as her scars felt like weeping.

_Miri _

Midwinter in the Riders barracks was more subdued than Onua could ever remember it being because this was the first Midwinter since the return of the Immortals. Winter was supposed to be a warrior's easy season, and even soldiers were supposed to be able to unwind around the hearth during the Midwinter holidays.

Human enemies didn't attack in the snow and the ice. Temporary truces between armies were almost always reached in honor of the weeklong celebration of Mithros' rebirth. However, monsters were different. They didn't mind attacking a village in the snow and the ice.

There had already been a dozen casualties among the Riders since the beginning of winter, and Onua wondered grimly how many new corpses the Immortals would make before spring arrived.

Of course, there was laughter, singing, dancing, and feasting in the mess hall as there always was at Midwinter. This year, though, the laughter was muted, sobered by the invisible presence of friends who could never be giggled with again. The singing was given a melancholy rather than joyous quality by the absence of baritones, tenors, altos, and sopranos who should have joined in the carols but who could never sing anything again. Even the dancing seemed weighed down by the missing partners who could have made the dancers soar. The holidays accentuated the absence of those who had once eaten, complained, gossiped, chuckled, played pranks, and loved in this room.

Onua, like everyone else in the mess hall, was reflecting on the absent, but, unlike the others, the person her mind drifted to most was not a dearly departed, but rather Daine. She had hired Daine out of charity like Buri had hired her out of charity, and, like Buri, she had pretended that the charity she offered was nothing more than a chance to work hard. Daine, with her quick wit and ability to charm every animal from ponies to Tahoi, had wormed her way into Onua's heart within days if not hours.

By the time they had arrived at the royal palace, Daine had become like the daughter Onua would never give birth to, but, Onua reminded herself, all children had to leave their parents. Mothers who clung to their children too long were selfish creatures who did not actually love their offspring. If she loved Daine, she had to accept that it was best for Daine to develop all the facets of her magic by studying full-time with Numair rather than working with the Riders, and Onua did love Daine. If she didn't, there would be no point to this moping in the first place…

"Horsemistress," said a voice from across the table quietly. Starting at the sound of her official title, Onua saw that Miri, who had been knitting a stocking with white doves against a scarlet background, had addressed her. "Are you feeling all right?"

"I'm fine." Onua smiled at Miri, remembering how the girl had been the one to invite Daine to sleep in her dormitory when Daine had first arrived in Tortall. Miri was always ready to welcome anyone with a friendly grin, which made her hard not to like. "Are you hoping for a lot of Midwinter presents tonight?"

"Oh, the stocking isn't for me." Miri laughed, shaking her head. "It's a present for my brother's new bride. I wanted to welcome her into the family with it, but, at the rate I'm going, it will probably reach her a week before next Midwinter. Really, with winter's awful roads, I should have sent it off to her sometime in November in order for it to arrive in time for this Midwinter."

"It's the thought that counts," remarked Onua.

"And there's never any thought behind anything I do." Miri's eyes glittered with mischief, and Onua thought that home was the place where a teenage girl with a giggling mouth and laughing eyes knitted a stocking with the doves of peace sewn into it to welcome someone warmly into her family. Home was the place where Onua kept finding new people to care about.

_Evin_

"I can make mistletoe appear," announced a beaming Evin Larse, as he waltzed up to Onua, who had been ladling herself a cup of eggnog from the tureen at the drink's table during the annual Riders' Midwinter party.

"You're from a family of Players, Evin." Onua took a sip of her eggnog, discovering that it was perfect—creamy and spiced with flecks of cinnamon and nutmeg. "Not from a family of carnival mages."

"If all the world is a stage, and everyone on it is a player with appointed exits and entrances, then the only real carnival mages are Players, who make people forget they are on stage with duly appointed exits and entrances." His beam widening, so it seemed to stretch literally from ear to ear, Evin waved a dismissive hand. "In that sense, I came from a family of carnival mages, not from a family of Players."

"You've had too much eggnog." Onua snorted and sipped from her eggnog again.

"I'm not the one sipping away at a cup of that disgusting, viscous stuff." With a flourish, Evin reached behind his ear and withdrew a green sprig of mistletoe, holding it over both their heads. "You're so plastered, you probably think I just pulled out a mistletoe to hold over our heads."

"That's because you did, idiot." Onua rolled her eyes.

"Then I should kiss you." Evin leaned forward, planted a wet kiss on her cheek, and declared enthusiastically, "You're my best thing."

"Next time, put on paint before you decide to play the fool." Onua chuckled, slapping his arm lightly. "Anyway, I hope you don't expect me to tell you that you're my best thing."

"Of course not." Evin's eyes widened dramatically. "You're your best thing. Midwinter luck."

With that, he tucked the mistletoe behind his ear once more, and sauntered off, doubtlessly to flirt with and tease more innocent women. Watching him go, Onua couldn't help but smile. She was her best thing, and the best thing she had ever done was come here, where freedom from fear tasted like nutmeg and cinnamon. She could thank her lucky star for guiding her into the warmth and the light out of the cold and the dark.


End file.
